It is curious that besides the Caroline Books and the
second canon of Frankfort, another matter of great difficulty springs
up with regard to the subject of the authority of the Seventh
Synod. In 1596 there appeared what claims to be an ancient
account of a convention of bishops in Paris in the year 824.554554 This is reprinted in
full in Mansi, and from him in Migne’s Pat. Lat., Tom.
XCVIII., col. 1299, et seqq. Cardinal Bellarmine’s
refutation is also found in Migne’s Charlemagne, and in Labbe and
Cossart, Tom. VII., of the Concilia. The point in which this interests us
is that the bishops at this meeting are supposed to have condemned the
Seventh Council, and to have approved the Caroline books. The
whole story was rejected by Cardinal Bellarmine and he promptly wrote a
refutation. Sismondi accepted this view of the matter, and Labbe
has excluded the pretended proceedings from his “Concilia”
altogether.

But while scholars are agreed that the assigned date is
impossible and that it must be 825, they have usually accepted the
facts as true, I need not mention others than such widely differing
authors as Fleury (Hist. Eccles., Lib. xlvij. iv.), Roisselet de
Sauclières (Hist. Chronol., Tome III., No. 792, p. 385),
and Hefele (Concilien, § 425).

It would be the height of presumption were I to express
any opinion upon this most disputed point, the reader will find the
whole matter at length in Walch (Bd. XI., S. 135, 139). I only
here note that if the account be genuine, then it is an established
fact that as late as 825, an assembly of bishops rejected an Ecumenical
Council accepted by the pope, and further charged the Supreme Pontiff
with having “commanded men to adore superstitiously images
(quod superstitiose eas adorare jussit),” and asked the
reigning Pontiff to correct the errors of his predecessors, and all
this without any reproof from the Holy See!

Hefele points out also that they not only entirely
misrepresent the teaching of Hadrian and the Seventh Council, but that
they also cite a passage from St. Augustine, “which teaches
exactly the opposite of that which this synod would make out, for the
passage says that the word colere can be applied to
men.”

554 This is reprinted in
full in Mansi, and from him in Migne’s Pat. Lat., Tom.
XCVIII., col. 1299, et seqq. Cardinal Bellarmine’s
refutation is also found in Migne’s Charlemagne, and in Labbe and
Cossart, Tom. VII., of the Concilia.